Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 97

Book Reviews: Superman Adventures, Volumes 3 and 4

Superman Adventures, Vol. 3: Last Son of Krypton by Mark Millar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This collects the all ages Superman Adventures Issues 30-34.

The book kicks off with a cracker jack two part story, "Family Reunion" that finds Clark Kent having seemingly lost a year and the world having moved on without Superman and his parents died. Out of nowhere his biological mom pops up and says that Krypton's Capitol City was saved and invites him to come home. However, things aren't what they seem in this tale of alternate dimensions where no one's quite what they seemed. Grade: A+

"Sullivan's Girlfriend Lois Lane" finds Superman doing battle with a hypnotic criminal who hypnotizes Lois without giving her a suggestion, so the janitor Sullivan gives him one of her own-that Lois Lane is his girlfriend. A somewhat Lois-centric feature that has mixed results. Shows Clark/Superman's character that he gently deals with Sullivan rather than intimidating him. Grade: B

"Clark Kent is Superman and I Can Prove It" finds someone having guessed Superman's secret identity and it's no one you'd expect, but a dead end former rival from Smallville. The way he extricates himself is a classic throwback to the silver age as well as how he deals with the discoverer. Grade: B+

By far, the weakest Superman Adventures story I've read in the digest so far was "Sanctuary" which features the supernatural superhero Dr. Fate. The story doesn't focus on Superman as a character which I hate and in addition to that, Dr. Fate doesn't acquit himself all that well either. The writers were thinking of something, but this was just weak. Grade: D

Even with the weak final story, "Family Reunion" makes this whole collection worthwhile.




Superman Adventures, Vol. 4: The Man of Steel by Mark Millar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the last of the Superman Adventures comics containing Issues 35-39 with five stories.

Lets take a look one by one: Don't Play with the Toyman's Toys: Someone has taken control of the Toyman's criminal toys while the evil midget is behind bars. A more "okay" story than good. The ending seemed a bit contrived. Grade: C+


This is a Job for Superman: No Supervillain in this one, just the Man of Steel out on a particularly busy patrol. Some great parts. somewhat disturbing part is the almost God-like expectations that some people have for him to solve every problem, and it seems to have rubbed off on him. Grade: B+

Clark Kent Public Enemy: Clark Kent is framed for a crime and locked up. It's up to Lois and Jimmy to clear him. This type of plot's been done before in Superman stories and much better than here. Grade: C

If I Ruled the World: Mxyzptlk shows up to hassle Superman and tries to warn off the parasite, but instead the parasite absorbs Mr. Mxyzptlk's powers getting some of the dangerous powers in the DC Universe. This is one of type of great stories that Superman Adventures did so well by mixing and matching two Superman foes. Mxyzptlk and Parasite both work because they are dangerous foes but are limited by very specific rules and to survive Superman has to play off those rules. Of course, whether anyone could do that to Mxyzptlk or whether Rudy's power's powerful enough to absorb it requires some extra suspension of disbelief. Overall, very good story. Grade: A-

Reunion: The one failure in Superman Adventures seems to be the overuse of Brainiac, as his shtick is the same every time. This time he's back with the help of a version of himself from Supergirl's home planet Argo. This version also borrowed appearance from Supergirl's mother. To put Brainiac on Argo requires some plotting gymnastics and Braniac himself is sounding a bit cheesy. Still, the story works on an emotional level as it's set at Mother's Day and finds Supergirl missing her mother and dealing with this Brainiac clone that looks like her. Grade: B

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5, but will round up.



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Book Review: Last Planet Standing

Last Planet Standing by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


The previous MC2 Universe "Event" comic, Last Hero Standing Tpb avoiding many of the exceses typical of these comic book mini-series with a strong emotional focal point in Captain America.

Unfortunately, Tom DeFalco couldn't produce another winner with this series. The plot centers around Earth's heroes facing Galactus who has schemed to end his constant hunger even it means destroying the entire universe and trillions of lives with it.

To start with, Galactus is not really a scheming character, he's a force of nature, at least as established in the main Marvel universe, and here there's nothing shared to indicate that this is his style in the MC2 universe. There seems to be the suggestion that he's "evolving" which seems to explain his changing behavior but it really doesn't. If anything, it seems a lame excuse to have someone act out of character.

The series lacks\ed focus. Given that DeFalco had only a 110 pages to tell his story in, dragging in things like politicking with the government over which superhero team is allowed to engage Galactus, the Avengers fighting some random group of bad guys, introducing some lame out of space board to try and stop Galactus by blowing up the Earth, or Spider-girl speculating on whether she'll go to college all just add a whole lot of padding. All of the personal banter between characters in this book fails as it doesn't develop character or amuse, it merely bogs things down. The series is just incredibly busy.

This leads to significant plot points being given short shrift or being pushed back. The destruction of Asgard takes up all of 1/3 of Issue 2. The Silver Surfer plays a pivotal role in this story (even though he's never been introduced in the MC2 Universe) but he doesn't show up until nearly eighty percent into the book. It should be noted the Silver Surfer appeared in no other story in the world. And then there's the ending that's just bizarre.

In the end, there are three redeeming points for Last Planet Standing:

1) No hero v. hero battles.

2) It was short. This wasn't an eight or twelve issue epic. While it wandered pretty far afield, it couldn't go far afield.

3) The Silver Surfer did perform well and had some cool art featuring the character, but neither in their world or in ours is the Silver Surfer as significant as Captain America in Last Hero Standing.

And that's about it. This reads like the writers were just mailing it in after the cancellation of the Spider-girl series. So what we have is a mess not worthy of the real high quality MC2 Universe represented.



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Book Review: Daredevil Volume 5 (Mark Waid)

Daredevil, Volume 5 by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The fifth volume of Mark Waid's Daredevil series sees our hero cope with the Superior Spider-man, a souped up Stiltman, and a vengeful villain who wants to make Matt Murdoch and the people he love suffer, but perhaps the most frightening foe of all has to be reckoned with: cancer.

The book begins with a relatively light issue in #27. The Superior Spider-man (really Otto Octavius having captured Peter Parker's body before dying) is asked to bring Daredevil for his own good by his most recent date an Assistant District Attorney but after the two begin to fight, they team up to defeat Stilt Man, a classic silver age Daredevil villain who is now souped up to the max with technology stolen from Otto.

Matt decides to patch up his friendship with best friend Foggy Nelson after the events of previous issues led to dissolution of their partnership. It's that Foggy informs Matt that he may have cancer.

And throughout the rest of the book, the cancer issue looms large, as the depth of one of the Marvel Universe's longest running friendships is on full display. Throughout his run on the series, Waid has always a good handle on this relationship, but here Waid goes even further in showing their loyalty and devotion. This lead to a nice back up story in Issue 27 where Foggy encounters some kids in the cancer ward who are drawing their own comic book using the Marvel characters to battle their greatest enemy. Waid has a rare gift among comic book writers in that he can write stories that touch human emotion, rather than just throwing copious amounts of sex and violence at the readers.

Of course, the book does have action aplenty as Daredevil finds that many seemingly unrelated problems with characters such as Stiltman and Coyote are caused by the same source: a vengeful mastermind who will do anything to take down the Man Without Fear. He even faces a foe who has Daredevil's exact same powers.

This was actually really well done in terms of the action and who the mastermind was behind it. The idea of Daredevil receiving several unrelated attacks and it turning out to be one master villain pulling the strings goes back to at least the 1970s, but they didn't do it quite this well back then.

The art by Chris Samnee really works well here. The art for many of the interpersonal scenes between Murdoch and Nelson were outstanding. Plus when he drew the kids comic he did a great job making it appear to be another style. Waid has had many artists on the book, but Samnee's a keeper.

If I had one criticism of the book, it actually relates more to Waid's overall run on the book. Kirsten McDuffie breaks up with Murdoch in this book. That I didn't object to, but what I do object to is that I didn't even care, neither did Matt. It seems like Waid created McDuffie to have a relationship with Murdoch, and then neither the character, Matt, or the readers really care about the relationship which means that the pages spent on her were truly wasted.

Still, this book is a solid winner with a great story of friendship combined with a true challenge for the Man Without Fear.



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Review: Superman Grounded, Volume 1

I've been working through the reviews I haven't posted on the blog in the order I read them for the most part, but seeing that Issue 701 from this story is getting some Internet play led me to bump up it in line.

Superman: Grounded, Vol. 1 by Michael J. Straczynski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In Action Comics #1, one of the first villains Superman took on was a wife-beater. The early Superman Golden Age stories introduced us to a guy who was concerned about real people and their very real problems. In one early adventure, he helped a down on his luck boxer come back. In another, he took the place of a man who was being pushed around constantly to help him a chance at success and happiness. In one unforgettable story, Superman helped a little boy at an orphanage ran by an abusive headmaster.

However, that Superman hadn't been seen for five decades or more. The drug dealers, gangsters, and abusers that terrorize people in our modern world had been deemed unfitting challenges for the man of steel as they can't really hurt him. Instead, Superman has to fight the big villains: Darkseid, Luthor, and Brainiac. The comic writes decreed Superman was too big, too grand, and majestic for ordinary people with their ordinary problems.

Superman: Grounded is therefore a throwback to the Superman of the 1940s and 50s. Superman left Earth to fight to save New Krypton in a previous issue. After that failed, some felt that Superman wasn't really loyalty to Earth: that he was alien and concerned with the affairs of alien worlds. Yet, when a widow blames him for the death of her husband (in a way that's rather far fetched), Superman makes a decision to start walking across America, getting in touch with ordinary people and their problems.

At first, when he started walking, I was reminded of the scene from Forest Gump when Gump began to run, but then as the story began to play out, I smiled. Superman's walkabout saw him helping people wherever he went, setting a good example and helping people in need. Sueprman's deeds were not hugely mighty, but they captured the often-forgotten heart of the Man of Steel. He spends hours on top of people talking to a suicidal jumper, he helps a man diagnose the problem with his car, takes on some crack houses, teaches a disturbed stalker a few lessons, and encounters an abused boy whose waiting for Superman or perhaps for anyone with enough compassion.

At its best, the book inspiring, moving, and evocative. It also gives an up close look at Lois Lane as she concludes she's a "bad feminist" as she comes to term with the choices in her life that have left her in Superman's shadow. We have a Perry White story that doesn't work quite well and seems to detract ever so slightly from the tone of the book while still working in a few humorous moments particularly when Perry acknowledges he could get fired from the Planet and he determines to start his own "blob" if that happens.

While this type of story couldn't go on forever, it was something wonderful while it lasted, it's an amazing story for its time and a must for everyone who loves to see the warm heart of Superman.



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Book Review: Batman Archives, Volume 2

Batman Archives, Vol. 2 by Bill Finger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book contains nearly 300 pages of Golden Age reprints of Batman stories from Detective Comics #51-#70 with each story being 12 pages long.

The book features a great introduction by crime writer Max Allan Collins who breaks down the history on each comic and what it's going for. Collins is also able to offer some cogent comparisons with Dick Tracy.

Then we're for a total of 20 different stories which are solid quality. Of the twenty stories in the book, we have the first two stories with Two Face, three stories with Penguin (including the first two), and three with the Joker.

And the rest of the book is no slouch either. There's a great amusement park story which is plenty of fun: pirates, a story featuring black marketeers with a fight on board a Nazi Zeppelin. There are some strange crime tales like a man who has 24 hours to live and starts killing off his heirs, a criminal gang hijacking police radio to send criminal messages, and a phony mentalist that actually gets the ability to read minds. I also loved, "The Three Racketeers."

The war rhetoric stars to heat up. Batman wants everyone to do their part, urging criminals shooting at him to conserve on bullets and the Joker flies away in a stolen bomber but assures Batman, "I'll send the Bomber back so it can drop a few eggs on the Japs." The Joker may be a homicidal maniac, but he's a patriotic one!

Robin continues to be outstanding, less of the traditional sidekick and more of a true partner. The villains put Batman to the test and Batman comes through every time.

These are simply superb stories. There are minor points to critique. The second Two Face Story is a little too over the top. The story featuring a Raffle Rip off named Baffles is merely okay. And the gesture of having the entire city conspire to deceive the parents of an understudy actress is sweet, but comes off as more of a Superman thing to do with an ending that's a little forced. It's interesting to see someone argue that Gotham City isn't so bad though as we live in the "Gotham is hell" age.

Overall, these stories are absolute fun. The rough edges of the early comics have been cleaned up and what remains is one of the best Golden Age characters of them all. Whether in the Archives or the Batman Chronicles, these are must-read stories.





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Book Review: Superman, The Dailies 1941-42

Superman: The Dailies, 1941-1942 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the last of the golden age Superman daily strip books and I'm sorry to see them end.

The bulk of this book is consumed by the Scientists of Sudden Death who set out to kill Superman in order to collect a million dollar award from a group of criminals. Among the group is a fairly complex character named Lil Danvers (nicknamed the Blonde Tigress.) She sets out to kill Superman because she believes Superman to be guilty of murdering her father.

The plots really are testing the limits of the Man of Steel. We see a lot of death rays and even a duplicate Superman. Poor Lois Lane is the scientists' favorite designated hostage and Superman's chief challenge is to foil their trap while still managing to save Lois. However, Lois does emerge from the shadow and get to the bottom of the murder Superman's been accused of by questioning a witness-at pistol point. Yes, indeed, this book features pistol packing Lois Lane. Love it!

My only complaint with the story arch was the end of Lil Danvers which seemed too pointless, but still not enough to ruin a story arch that ran for eight months.

The final story coincided with the release of the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons and it's a doozy. Someone's trying to sabotage the new Superman movie and the producer of the film notices that Clark Kent has a resemblance to the Man of Steel and hires him to act in the picture. So Superman has to make the movie, catch the bad guys, and avoid Lois Lane seeing him dressed as Superman lest she learn the truth. This was just a really fun serial.

I have to say I wish the other 25 years of the Newspaper strip were made available. Clearly, the newspaper strips offered a wonderful way to experience Superman adventures different from other mediums such as radio. There's still the Sunday strips (which are in a separate volume)but it's hard to imagine they'll be as fun as these dailies.



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Review: The Tick Karma Tornado

The Tick: Karma Tornado, The Complete Works by Chris McCulloch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the second collectionof Tick Comics, collecting Karma Tornado 1-9 and Tick's Back -4 to -1, a lead up to the Big Blue Destiny series.

Issues 1-4 were written by Chris McCulloch and were meant to be set out of continuity for when Ben Edlund promised to return to continue on the Tick with Issue 13 when the cartoon was done. This never happened.

The first two issues featured the Tick competing in some intergalactic for unknown prizes. It was a surreal parody of stories like Secret Wars. Not as funny as Edlund's best, but still pretty good.

The next two have Tick sidetracked on his way home by a space monkey and the fantastic Galactus parody Nigh Omniputus as Tick becomes his personal assistant until realizing he's up to no good. The story ends on a cliffhanger which is never resolved.

Issue 5 begins completing ignoring the last four issues as Clay Griffith goes on a comic tour de force, with some pretty solid satire. In Issue 5, he features the, "League of Justly Compensated Heroes." Issue 6 makes fun of politics and media coverage in "Mr. Tick Goes to Washington" which leans a little left but not too far in its parody. Issue 7, "The Night of the Living Tick" is a great horror comic parody. Issue 8, "C-Spandex" has Tick signed to a variety of roles on a Superhero TV network.

Then Griffith left and we were left with LC Cheverett to close out the series with the mostly unfunny, "Tick's Life in the Day" which seems like typical sitcom fare and unfunny sitcom fare at that.

The Comet Club one-page stories were mostly okay, but sometimes slightly underdeveloped. The four Tick's back stories are short 4-6 page stories that feature the Tick and are of mixed quality.

Overall, there's some solid issues. Issues 5-8 are my favorite, but I wouldn't discount 1-4 either.



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Book Review: Essential Daredevil, Volume 4

Essential Daredevil, Vol. 4 by Gerry Conway

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Man Without Fear's fourth black and white reprint volume covers Issues 76-101 with Avengers #111 thrown in for good measure leading us through 1970s Daredevil. The book has many positive points and some negatives.

Positives:
--The book features the end of what feels like an eternal break up session between Matt Murdoch and Karen Page. The mismatched couple finally break up for good (for now) in Daredevil Issue #85 when realizing the obvious: Karen can't give Matt what he needs (a woman who can stand beside him while he fights as Daredevil.) and Matt can't give Karen what she needs (a stable relationship with someone who won't get herself killed.) The two finally realize this after Matt takes a beating as Daredevil. Finally.

--The new relationship with Black Widow: As a concept, the new relationship with Black Widow was great. Unlike with Karen, Matt would have someone who had danger in her blood: a true fellow traveler. This was a great concept. The execution wasn't so great (see negatives) but the idea was fun and a major of upgrade on the depress-o-rama that was Page-Murdock.

--The Move to San Francisco: Readers who complain about the move to San Francisco taking away Daredevil's Hell's Kitchen's roots are using an anachronism. At this point, he had no Hell's Kitchen roots. The book prior to the move was focused on fighting villains over Manhattan. This was a good early moved that recognized that there was more to America than New York City and that there would be heroes in other places. The Silver Age New York City was just overrun with superheroes. While it didn't last, I thought it was a solid idea.

---Gene Colan's artwork: The man drew Daredevil in an amazing way. Each page was a wonder to behold. Sadly, this is the last book of Colan's main run on the title, although he did pencil sporadically throughout the '70s.

---Villain Relaunch: I have some problems with Conway, but I have to admit that I like how he tweaked a lot of Daredevil's silver age villains included the Purple Man, Killgrave (Purple Man), and a new Dr. Fear. Also I liked some of the new villains such as Man-Bull, a nice Rhino-type villain and Dark Messiah.

---Avengers team up. A beleaguered Avengers team invites Daredevil and Black Widow to join them in a battle against Magneto. Daredevil rarely faces that type of heavy hitter, so it's nice to include this. Also Hawkeye appeared and refused to fight Magneto due to his issues with the Avengers despite the face of mankind riding on it. i'm only up to Avengers #24 in the Essentials but it's good to know he hasn't changed much.

Now on to the negatives:

---Inability to manage the Daredevil-Black Widow relationship. As I stated, this wasn't as bad as Karen Page, but what would we be? The problem is that Conway started adding tension right from the beginning of the relationship with us getting no time to develop actual caring about it. Black Widow constantly asserting herself as an, "I am Woman" feminist. Daredevil helps the act, but at times being condescending to her and making decisions for her, something he never did for Karen Page. Matt Murdoch in his relations with Black Widow was a type of feminist punching bag for clueless men. On top of this, Black Widow is completely inconsiderate of Matt and denigrates their relationship, never mind that Matt moved cross country and into an apartment in Widow's house to pursue the relationship. (Though I will give kudos to Marvel having some morals.) To be fair, Steve Gerber did improve things a tad by givin g

---Political pandering: Stan Lee probably holds similar political beliefs to Conway and other authors but his method of dealing with politics was different. He showed empathy with youth but also challenged them in ways to following since as simple human principles like not judging by appearance and even offered them Iron Man, a weapons manufacturer as hero. Conway on the other hand totally panders to politics. The gender stuff is the biggest thing with one person referring to Black Widow as the Gloria Steinhem of the superhero set. At the same time, in a thought bubble, Daredevil though he could have had kids with Karen Page, but no more than one or two as not to offend our ecological friends? Um, really? The problem with pandering is that much of it is done to people who don't exist as a group anymore, meaning it ages the book badly.

---Purple prose: Conway over-narrated a lot of the early stories, though he did seem to get it mostly under control after San Francisco.

---Lackluster Issue 100. You expect issue 100 to be big, to have some monumental memorable double length story. Instead Daredevil #100 had the Man Without Fear being interviewed by rolling stones, having flashbacks, and starting a new story arch. To be fair, the comic was transitioning to Steve Gerber, but it was lousy time on the part of Marvel.

Overall, it was a decent but not spectacular read from an author who really was hit or miss. The art plus a few positive elements make it a worthy read.





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Book Review: The Golden Age Robin Archives, Volume 1

The Robin Archives, Vol. 1 by Bill Finger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Some modern re-imaginings of Robin have him as a somewhat useless and lame sidekick but the golden age Robin was an awesome character who massively increased the popularity of Batman with his introduction in 1940.

In this book, the full awesome power of Robin is on display in his first twenty-one solo adventures in Star Spangled Comics from 1947-48. Each story runs about 11 pages including the cover. While the story's length is short by modern standards, each adventure is a plot-driven romp. In this book, Robin travels to India, gets stranded on a desert island and single handedly takes on a troop of escaped Nazis on a desert island, he stars in a movie, travels through time, and even gets his own supervillain in the Clock.

My big question is how could you be a preteen in this era and not being reading Robin? He's what every boy wants to be boy: tough, smart, courageous, and encountering adventure every turn. He's also a role model as he's also compassionate, but not sappy, and several stories feature a strong anti-juvenile delinquency message. This book is the ultimate boyhood fantasy. It's even freed from bounds of political correctness as Robin uses a gun to hunt in the wild and even goes whaling with Eskimos.

This is an great book tells stories from a time in American history when being a boy was great and being the Boy Wonder was pure awesome, full of fantasy and wonder. This is Robin at his finest.



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Book Review: Superman The Dailies: 1940-41

Superman: The Dailies, 1940-1941 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The second volume of the Dailies covers Superman's adventures from 1940-41. The work is definitely a step up. While. Superman covers some of the same ground in this volume, the quality of writing is much better and much more complex. While we don't get modern supervillains, we get better villains including the appearance of a bald Lex Luthor.

Superman also begins to dip his tow into the waters of the then-growing international crisis and the war in Europe when one power commits sabotage against the United States and tries to frame the other. Siegel gives the nations fictional names, but as one of them is obviously German, it was a pretty slim artifice with Bltizen (obviously Germany) being the aggressor country and Rutland being the one attacked. The story still takes a pacifist turn as it ends with a Hitler lookalike (dictator of Blitzen) and a General from Rutland duking it out. The thought seems to be that if the leaders had to fight the wars themselves rather than sending other people's children off to war they might be less eager to do so. It's fantasy with a point.

Superman takes on Tenements and organized crime. The stories begin to soar as he takes on some much more interesting if not super-powered villains in the story, "The Unknown Strikes" which features a great concept where the city is being blackmailed into allowing bank robberies with a threat of a major explosion hanging over their head. The next three serials are as action packed and suspenseful, posing a challenge for the man of steel to unravel the mystery and avoid catastrophe. These are more exciting than most the radio serials than were running at the time.

The book closes very strong with the story line, "The Meekest Man in the World." A man named Eustance sends an advice to lovelorn letter declaring that his shyness is ruining his life and subjecting him to ridicule and that he's in love with his boss' daughter but "unable to assert myself" and has gone to dozens of psychiatrists with getting. Lois laughs at the letter, declares it pathetic. However, in his thought bubble, Superman thinks, "This fellow and his problem may seem petty, but to him it's the greatest crisis in the World! Big problem interest me and it looks as if Eustance and Superman are going to get together."

And so Superman first observes Eustance and sees that not only is he timid but everyone from his landlady to his co-workers are pushing him around. Eustance has a chance to turn his life around and get the girl he loves, if and only if he can sell four prospects on doing business with his boss' firm. So Superman steps to lend a hand by disguising himself as Eustance.

The story line is wonderful.It was originally told over a 3 month period from December 1940 to March 1941. At times, it's a laugh riot as Superman turns the tables on Eustance's tormentors and uses his superpowers to solve problems that are keeping potential clients from signing Eustance's company. There's also plenty of action as Eustance's rival is willing to call in thugs to make sure he gets the promotion. It's also quite poignant and displays the big heart of Superman who declares, "I like to help people. When I see someone in a tough spot I feel an irresistible urge to play guardian angel." No Brainiac, no Luthor, no Toy Man, no major supervillain, but this is one of my favorite superman stories and makes the whole book well worth reading.



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